NASCAR Homestead 2014: Sprint Cup championship again eludes Denny Hamlin

Because of NASCAR’s revised Chase for the Sprint Cup format, Denny Hamlin came into the season finale in a four-way tie with Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano and Ryan Newman. Whichever driver of the four finished best Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway would win the 2014 championship.

And for much of the afternoon that appeared to be Hamlin, who seized control in the second half of the Ford EcoBoost 400.

But a decision by Hamlin and crew chief Darian Grubb to not pit with less than 20 laps remaining proved decisive. With Hamlin staying out on the track, Newman grabbed two fresh tires and Harvick four, essentially placing Hamlin on an island. (During that same sequence Logano’s car fell off a jack, knocking him out of contention.)

On older tires Hamlin stood little chance of holding off Harvick, who quickly recouped the lost track position and passed Hamlin with seven laps to go following a series of late cautions. The pass not only won Harvick the race, but the championship.

“Just got killed with that strategy there at the end and all those cautions really hurt us a lot allowing those guys to close back up,” Hamlin said. “It’s just part of it. Sometimes they fall your way and sometimes they don’t. Unfortunately, the breaks didn’t really go our way at the end of the race today.”

Defending the call Grubb said “hindsight is 20-20” and were it not for two cautions not pitting would have been the correct decision. But because the cautions fell at an inopportune time, the crew chief acknowledged his culpability.

“It’s the wrong call, but at the time it was the perfect call,” Grubb said. “We were able to get out there and get the lead. We had it wrapped up there and then two quick cautions are what killed us.

“I made that call and I knew some guys were going to be aggressive. And of course (Newman) was -- he did the two tires. I thought we could beat him straight up, but I couldn’t predict (Harvick) and (Logano) both having really, really bad pit stops on that last round and that it would have gave us a clear advantage if we’d come in and done four (tires) in hindsight. It’s over and done with now and we’re going to fight for next year.”

The disappointment of falling short in the championship race is something Hamlin knows all too well. In 2010, he came into Homestead holding the points lead over Jimmie Johnson, only to be overwhelmed by the situation due to nerves. Hamlin would struggle in qualifying and then spun early in the race. His points lead vanished with Johnson going on to win a fifth title.

But the two defeats, while both painful, aren’t similar. In 2010 Hamlin was expected to win, whereas this year he entered the championship finale as a bit of an underdog due to a trying season with just a single victory.

“We haven’t had the speed to run with (Harvick) all year long, and we did tonight,” Hamlin said. All things equal, I loved our chances, but this is a little bit different because when we had an early incident in 2010, it kind of damaged our car enough to where we couldn’t overcome that throughout the day.

“So very proud of what we brought to the racetrack and were able to compete with, but strategy is part of winning and the strategy for us didn’t work out with what happened with the cautions. But it’s a part of racing, and you can’t predict those things.”